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Activists Help Young Immigrants Plan For Trump's Administration

DACA campaign
Activists Help Young Immigrants Plan For Trump's Administration
San Diego activists launched a campaign to prepare young immigrants for Trump's possible revocation of DACA, an immigration program benefiting thousands of them.

Alliance San Diego launched a campaign, "Rising Together," to help young immigrants decide what to do before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20.

Trump has promised to revoke President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an immigration program benefiting thousands of young immigrants. The program gives deportation relief and temporary work permits to people who arrived in the U.S. illegally before the age of 16. It also allows them to apply for financial aid for school.

About 40,000 people in San Diego are eligible.

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"I have been able to attend college," said Itzel Guillen, a San Diego-based recipient of DACA. "I'm in my senior year at San Diego State University, where I've been pursuing a political science degree, and I know I'm not the only one, I'm not the only success story."

Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, said the campaign advises young immigrants like Guillen, who already benefit from the program, to renew their DACA status before Jan. 20.

"They're already known to the government, they're are already out of the shadows," she said.

But if they haven't applied to DACA before, Guerrero said the organization is recommending against doing so, because of the uncertainty surrounding what Trump would do with their applications.

"The concern is that those who have not yet applied for DACA, if they were to apply now, the program might end before they were awarded DACA, and they will be in limbo," she said. "They will have come out of the shadows, they will be known to the government, but they won't have DACA ... they will be in a vulnerable position."

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Last month, Trump's transition team asked the Department of Homeland Security if the biographic information of immigrants had been altered in any way "out of concern for their civil liberties," Reuters reported earlier this week.

The news raised questions about whether his request was tied to plans to use that information to deport DACA recipients. In the past, administrative programs like DACA have never been used as a base for deportation, Alliance San Diego said.

DACA- You Are Not Alone. Rise Together.

The campaign is advising immigrants to explore permanent immigration programs. Guerrero said 15 percent of the undocumented population in San Diego qualifies for permanent immigration programs such as the U-Visa, for immigrants who are victims of crimes, or the Violence Against Women Act.

Additionally, Alliance San Diego is telling young immigrants to plan ahead in case of an "immigration-related emergency," for example, being detained by an immigration official.

"It’s absolutely important that you gather your personal documents, that includes your birth certificate if you have one, your passport, or any other identity documents, that you gather them in one place and make sure that somebody you trust knows where they are," Guerrero said.

She said one of the main challenges of detained immigrants is accessing the documents they need to prove their identity and avoid deportation.

"It's so important here, especially in the border region, where people can be deported within the hour," Guerrero said.

The Alliance San Diego campaign includes countywide information sessions at education centers, faith centers, health centers and more. Immigrants can also call a new hotline at (619)-363-3423 or watch an instructive video. Alliance San Diego plans to keep the campaign going all year.